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equal rhyme

Rhyme
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Rhymes that match perfectly in vowel and consonant sounds (e.g., “light”/“bright”), creating strong auditory unity and formal closure.

Explore this topic in depth (1)

Rhyme — Rhyme is more than a matching sound at the ends of lines. This guide explores how poets use rhyme to organise language, create expectation, make connections between words and alter what we hear when a poem is read or sung.

Detailed Definition
Rhymes exhibiting perfect phonetic correspondence and equivalent strength, distinguished from slant rhyme, near rhyme, or eye rhyme by their complete acoustic match. Examples like "cat/bat" or "moon/June" demonstrate equal phonetic match where both rhyming words carry equivalent sonic weight. This creates consistency in rhyme scheme quality, important for maintaining formal coherence in structured verse requiring strong rhyme.
Example
Example in poetry:
Shakespeare’s Sonnet 10: “For shame, deny that thou bear’st love to any, / Who for thyself art so unprovident”—“any” and “unprovident” share vowel-consonant symmetry; Emily Dickinson’s slant rhymes like “room”/“storm” create equal rhyme through assonance; Gerard Manley Hopkins’s “Pied Beauty”: “swift, slow; sweet, sour” uses consonantal equal rhyme; W.B. Yeats’s “Easter, 1916”: “terrible beauty is born”—“born”/“stone” as equal rhyme; Sylvia Plath’s “Ariel”: “cry”/“eye” as vowel-equal rhyme; Lucille Clifton’s “blessing the boats”: “water”/“daughter” as equal rhyme.
Additional Notes
Distinguished from slant rhyme, near rhyme, or eye rhyme by perfect phonetic correspondence. "Cat/bat" and "moon/June" exemplify equal strength. Important for maintaining consistent rhyme scheme quality.
Also Known As
Perfect rhyme True rhyme Full rhyme Exact rhyme Equipollent rhyme
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